Silencing Authors in India

The story of the latest victim of censorship by intimidation in India, the Tamil-language author Perumal Murugan, was taken up by the Madras High Court on Tuesday. Earlier this month, Mr. Murugan posted a poignant statement on his Facebook page: “Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead.” This was after he had been hounded by right-wing Hindu groups, had met with local authorities and had agreed to withdraw copies of his novel from sale. The author’s plight has provoked an outpouring of support from readers and writers in India.

Activists affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Hindu right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had called for the book to be banned because it offended them. Weeks of threatening phone calls to Mr. Murugan culminated in late December with a mob burning copies of the novel in the town where it is set.

The main source of the mob’s ire were passages that evoke an ancient temple ritual that Mr. Murugan, who grew up in the area, does believe occurred in the past. It involves consensual sex between anonymous men and married women who had failed to conceive.

This is hardly the first time in India that groups expressing their outrage have acted as cultural vigilantes by trying to silence authors with threats. In 2012, an organizer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, William Dalrymple, was forced to cancel a planned program by video with the author Salman Rushdie — who had already canceled a personal appearance — after outraged Muslim activists threatened violence.

The Madras High Court has wisely asked the group that filed the Murugan case, the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association, to broaden its petition to the larger issue of violent threats to freedom of expression. The court said: “Our largest concern is extrajudicial groups wielding power to decide what is right and what is not right, and asking authors what to write and what not to write.”

This is refreshing language from an Indian court on the issue of free speech.